Natalie Gulbis

Natalie Gulbis
Natalie Anne Gulbis (born January 7, 1983 in Sacramento, CA) is an American professional golfer who plays on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour.

Golf career

Gulbis started finding interest in the game at the early age of 4. By the time she reached 7 years old she had won her first tournament. In three years when she was only 10 years old, she was breaking par.

Gulbis is of Latvian descent, her last name meaning swan in Latvian, and was born in Sacramento, California, and played in her first LPGA tour event as an amateur at the age of 14 (handicap of 2). She attended Granite Bay High School and graduated when she was 16. She turned professional at age 18 after playing for one season on the women's golf team at the University of Arizona.

Gulbis did not win a tournament in the first five years of her professional career but still finished sixth on the LPGA money list in 2005 with over $1 million (U.S.) in earnings and played on the winning United States Solheim Cup team. She placed in the top-10 in four consecutive major championships from the 2005 LPGA Championship to the 2006 Kraft Nabisco Championship.

Gulbis' first professional win came in 2007 at the Evian Masters where she defeated Jeong Jang in a playoff to claim the winner's share of the $3,000,000 purse.

[edit] Personal life, business and media

Gulbis is considered to be a sex symbol in the LPGA. When she released a calendar for 2005 just before the 2004 U.S. Women's Open, which featured her in different pictures showing her playing golf, in addition to striking poses in swimwear, the United States Golf Association (USGA) barred it from being sold at the event, deeming it inappropriate. The calendar was sold very openly at Golf Canada. The USGA was criticized for overreacting. Gulbis also posed for the November 2004 issue of the magazine FHM, an issue that also gave away a chance to play golf with her at her home course, the Lake Las Vegas Resort, where her calendar photo shoot took place. Gulbis has said that she likes the attention she gets, even if it is for her appearance; she has endorsement deals with TaylorMade Golf, Adidas, Canon, Raymond Weil geneve, Amstel Light, SkyCaddie, Payment Data Systems, MasterCard, Winn Golf Grips and Lake Las Vegas Resort. Gulbis was romantically linked to Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, 2005.

In 2006, Gulbis began writing a monthly golf advice column in FHM. In November 2005, a reality television show, The Natalie Gulbis Show, made its debut on The Golf Channel. The show had its second season premiere on October 18, 2006. Gulbis has also appeared on the 2007 version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour by EA Sports along with fellow professionals Annika Sörenstam, Ian Poulter and Luke Donald, among others. Ironically, in August 2007 Gulbis appeared on the August/September cover of Sactown Magazine in an article that profiled the rising star's busy life of product endorsements and photo shoots, though frustratingly enough, no pro win. Gil Ozir, Vice President of Marketing for Raymond Weil (a luxury watchmaker and one of Gulbis' many endorsement deals) was quoted as saying, "Once she starts winning, she's going to be a megastar." Mere days later, Gulbis won the Evian Masters, her first professional LPGA title.

[edit] Professional wins (1)